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The War and Peace Digest is a bimonthly international newsletter on issues
of disarmament, government secrecy, media accountability, the nuclear
threat (from both civilian power plants and the military weapons complex),
ecological destruction, and peaceful conflict resolution through the
structures of the United Nations. If you would like to be placed on our
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BNL - IRAQGATE SCANDAL
The Chicago Connection - Bush & Saddam Inc.
Key documents - sought by Gonzalez - withheld
With George Bush ready to take America into another war with Iraq to
destroy the nuclear, chemical, biological and missiles weapons that Bush
himself helped Saddam Hussein to build, Congressmen Henry Gonzalez, the
courageous Texas Democrat who heads the House Banking Committee, continues,
single-handedly, to peel back layer after layer of cover-up to reveal the
monumental proportions of the Iraqgate-BNL (Banca Nazionale Del Lavoro)
scandal that now threatens to bring down the Bush regime. But the most
explosive documents have been withheld.
Over the past several months Gonzalez has shown the Iraqgate-
BNL scandal to be bigger than anyone had imagined. He has uncovered and
reported incontestable evidence that Bush and his associates secretly sold
nuclear, biological, chemical and missile-related weapons materials to
Saddam Hussein; blocked investigations into the use of such materials by
Hussein; suppressed memos warning of the dangers of such sales;
deliberately falsified documents on such sales submitted to Congress and
interfered illegally to halt investigations into the criminal activities of
the BNL bank in secretly diverting American agricultural loans to buy the
weapons for Hussein.
BNL-BCCI Chicago Branches
Gonzalez has revealed a Bush policy disaster that lead to the first
Gulf War and a blunder that is now costing the Americans $2 billion to pay
off the loans Bush guaranteed with U.S. taxpayersU money . Bush repeatedly
ignored warnings that Iraq would default on the loans. Now, certain key
documents - perhaps the most revealing yet - are being withheld from the
Gonzalez investigation. They are said to be the records of the Chicago
branches of BNL and BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International),
through which, some investigators say , George Bush and Saddam Hussein may
have been involved in a joint, private enterprise to skim oil profits
arising from Reagan-Bush policies toward Iraq. The documents have been
impounded by a Chicago court and Congressman Gonzalez Banking Committee
has been denied access.
Bush's Pennzoil Profits
Between 1980 and 1990 the Gulf region exported a trillion dollars
worth of oil to the West. Hundreds of billions of dollars in kickbacks were
involved. Some of the kickbacks were said to be handled by the BNL/BCCI
banks for Pennzoil, an oil company founded by George Bush The Pennzoil
case was (is?) the target of Ross PerotUs much-denied investigation of the
Bush family and friends. Investigators believe the Chicago bank records
could help explain BushUs massive, covert military support for Iraq in the
years between 1981-1990.
The Chicago BNL /BCCI records could also provide clues to why the
Bush Administration secretly - and possibly illegally - exempted eleven
members of the Bush cabinet from conflict of interest restrictions in their
handling of the Gulf war policy. Bush simply declared that the law
regarding conflict of interest would cease to apply to his advisors on the
Gulf war policy. He then ordered that his declaration would be not be made
public. Congressman Gonzalez is now asking Bush to explain the deal. Bush
has not responded.
According to some investigators, the BNL-BCCI bank documents
now impounded by a Chicago judge could shed light not only on the
Iraqgate case, but on other illegal transactions including Iran-Contra,
October Surprise and the Inslaw case. In all instances monies passed
through the BNL/BCCI banking network.
BNL is an Italian bank now under investigation by Congress for
fraud in using loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to finance
IraqUs pre-war military buildup. Over the past thirty years, BNL is
suspected of involvement in a wide range of international criminal
activities. (French Intelligence investigators have even linked the bank to
large payments to certain individuals in Europe in late 1963, thought to be
associated with the John Kennedy assassination.)
On December 28th 1990, when Gonzalez sought the records of the
Chicago branch of BNL (Case number 90 C 6863 of the U.S. District Court in
Chicago: People of the State of Illinois ex re; William C. Harris v. the
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System), Gonzalez was told by
Federal Judge, Brian Duff that he could not have them. Duff, a friend of
both Bush and Reagan, works closely with the Federal Reserve Bank. Duff
impounded the documents and abused GonzalezU attorney for Rbehaving like an
800 -pound gorilla.S That is when Duff impounded the records.
Questions abound. Suspicions arise from the fact that among
officials involved in the BNL bank is Brent Scowcroft, BushUs National
Security advisor who, Gonzalez has now revealed, maintained a million-
dollar financial interest in 40 of the biggest U.S. weapons companies that
profited from U.S. policies toward Iraq, including General Electric,
General Motors, ITT, and Lockheed. Gonzalez has also revealed that
Assistant Secretary of State Laurence Eagleberger worked closely with BNL
when he and Scowcroft were part of Henry KissingerUs consulting firm.
Kissinger was a member of the board of BNL and his firm represents BNL in
the USA.
BNL, P2 and the Vatican Bank
The BNL bank was also used for secret arms trade by the outlawed P2
Masonic Lodge of Rome, whose Grandmaster, Licio Gelli is thought to have
been the mastermind behind BNLUs illegal, world-wide banking strategies,
until his arrest in 1981, for embezzling $1.5 billion from the Vatican
Bank. The Vatican Bank had close ties with BNL. Gelli was recently
sentenced to 18 years in jail for his role in the case.
Gelli was involved with the PopeUs banker and bodyguard, Bishop
Marcinkus (formerly of Chicago) in the Vatican Bank embezzlement. When the
Italian government issued a warrant for the BishopUs arrest they were
blocked by the Vatican, which claims separate city-state authority. (The
Pope is still closely involved with Marcinkus and the Vatican Bank is still
closely associated with BNL.)
Bush and Gelli are friends. Gelli was guest of honor at the 1981
Reagan-Bush inaugural ball. (N.Y. Times, June 4, 1981, page 7.) Kissinger
also knew Gelli. When Gelli was arrested in March, 1981, Kissinger
immediately sent an agent to Rome with $18,000 to try to buy some of the
documents in the P2 case to keep them from becoming public ( In These
Times, Sept. 1982). It may be of interest that P2 had a lodge in Chicago.
Chicago, it is now emerging, has been the central point for vast,
international, illegal transactions involving the BNL and BCCI banks and
secret deals with American oil companies, military manufacturers, the CIA,
and possibly U.S. politicians. (According to a London source, unreleased
BCCI documents in the possession of the Bank of London list the names of
at least 105 members of U.S. Congress - of both Houses and both parties -
who have received money through the Chicago branch of BCCI. The U.S.
Federal Reserve is said to have a copy of the same secret BCCI list).
The Octopus
Just as the P2 scandal in Italy brought down the government and
destroyed hundred of careers in politics, industry and banking, so too the
BNL/BCCI - Penzzoil case could bring down the Bush administration and send
dozens of top administration officials to jail. Indeed the P2 and BNL cases
overlap in the October Surprise case, and U.S. investigators would do well
to examine the Italian government documents in the P2 case as part of their
inquiry into the October Surprise/BNL/BCCI/Penzzoil/Bush/Hussein links. It
is beginning to look as though the late journalist, Danny Casselaro was on
the right track at the time of his highly suspicious RsuicideS last year,
when he was investigating what he called RThe OctopusS, a vast,
interlocking, international criminal conspiracy.
Bush's Watergate
Congress is now calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor
to investigate the ballooning BNL-Iraqgate case. In his insightful and
relentless reporting on the case in The New York Times, William Safire says
flatly that BNL will be BushUs Watergate. Saffire is now investigating the
Chicago link to the case. (Updates on the case now appear regularly on the
recorded telephone hotlines of controversial Chicago investigator, Sherman
Scholnick of the RCommittee to Clean Up the CourtsS, who has spearheaded
his own investigation. Call: 312 - 731 1100 & 312- 731 1505 for five-
minute recorded updates.)
When appointed, the Special Prosecutor in the BNL/Iraqgate case
should have immediate access to all the records, including the crucial
documents now confiscated and impounded by the Chicago court.
When the truth of the BNL case is finally revealed, the War &
Peace foundation believes we will see the extent to which politics around
the world
have been corrupted by the arms trade. Iraqgate will serve as further
evidence of the need for international monitoring by the United Nations of
all weapons traffic as a first, essential step toward complete world
disarmament.
Ironically, as we go to press, joint efforts by both houses of
Congress in the wake of the Iraqgate revelations to tighten restrictions on
the sale of nuclear weapons-related materials to nations like Iraq, Iran
and Syria, have provoked a threat of veto by George Bush, who argues that
such non- proliferation legislation would mean a loss of business for
American nuclear exporters!
** End of text from cdp:gen.newsletter **